Veterinary scientists from Health Canada's Human Safety Division testified
yesterday that they are being pressured to approve a controversial hormone
intended to boost milk production in dairy cattle. ``We have been pressured
and coerced to pass drugs of questionable safety, including rBST,'' Dr.
Shiv Chopra told the Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry.

The senators sat dumbfounded as Dr. Margaret Haydon told of being in
a meeting when officials from Monsanto Inc., the drug's manufacturer, made
an offer of between $1 million and $2 million to the scientists from Health
Canada -- an offer that she told the senators could only have been interpreted
as a bribe.

Dr. Haydon also recounted how notes and files critical of scientific
data provided by Monsanto were stolen from a locked filing cabinet in her
office. Dr. Chopra said that all files pertaining to rBST are now controlled
by one senior bureaucrat and can only be viewed by gaining permission.
``I can't even believe I'm in Canada when I hear that your files have been
stolen and that all the files are now in the hands of one person,'' said
Senator Eugene Whelan. ``What the hell kind of a system have we got here?''